When gasoline at $4/gallon becomes a bargain within a few years time, the economic upheavals will make AGW problems seem miniscule. Whole industries will be threatened and many consumer goods will skyrocket in cost to either produce or import.

Cheap vacations abroad will disappear as many airline business models completely fail when oil exceeds $200/barrel. The overnight courier businesses will shrink into oblivion when it costs more than a hundred dollars to ship a small parcel overnight.

The just-in-time delivery business practices in all industries will implode because it will become far less expensive to stock inventories as they did in past than to rely on fast cheap reliable transportation of goods. Say goodbye to the massive fleets of trucks on our highways.

Some consumers will flock back to city living from the suburbs as it will become too expensive to commute to work. This has already been seen happening in America during the current economic recession.

Many consumer goods imported from the far-east will no longer be "low cost" Toys to electronics to clothing will simply disappear from WalMart's shelves as consumers will no longer be willing to buy them.

Widespread conservation and efficiency upgrade measures, and shifting some oil uses over to electric read other energy sources are our only hope to mitigate the untold many other looming economic problems.

Academics who disagree with the carbon theory of global warming risk being ostracised within their universities or risk having their sources of funding reduced. If the accept funding from private sources, they are accused of being in the pockets of big business. Academics have to be politically correct if they are not to run afoul of their peers in today's academia . . . very few would so much as to publically disagree with their peers or with government officials. State control of academia effectrively restricts debate and silences critics who woudl otherwise speak out against the fraud of the carbon theory of global warming.

... I'm shocked, simply shocked!

Don't forget politicians typically listen to us hapless taxpayers if enough of us are screaming at them.

Public fear of environmental catastrophe has been growing steadily, boosting the volume level so politicians are listening more, and not just in America, it's worldwide. So yes indeed parts of the renewable energy industry and some politicians are "feeding" off of us.

It's not much different really than what happens with other industries who grow their businesses as a result of public pressure on governments to intervene. It's what typically happens when the public also perceives they have no other way to effect change, particularly when any change from the status quo is an attack on large vested interests in existing large corporations as is the case in energy.

Need other examples? The US and Canadian government bailouts of GM and Chrysler this year are a result of public pressure to preserve the huge numbers of jobs in the economy that depend on them. One can argue that the literally hundreds of companies kept afloat with the bailouts were in effect "feeding" off us hapless taxpayers. It's a similar story with the large financial institutions bailed out last year by the US government. Many other banks and companies in the banking system were effectively feeding off taxpayers being kept alive.

If you're shocked at these things, watch what can and will happen if the US federal debt gets out of control as it is threatening to do. Foreign lenders will eventually stop loaning Washington money as they recognize it may never be paid back, and then see what happens to us hapless taxpayers in North America.

The author makes many statements, but puts out no references to back them up. You mention how the proponents simply need to present the evidence, but you have not done so yourself. And I found no starting points for search at the end of the article, as you have stated.

I agree that oil depletion is a more pressing and immediate problem than global warming. But I'm not sure that directly relates to this issue. Why not write an article about oil depletion instead? It seems reasonable that our efforts to address oil depletion might also consider global warming as well. Oil depletion will be so challenging to address, the added effort to handle global warming may actually be rather reasonable.

At the end of the day, global warming and carbon emissions are really about coal. Oil and gas will largely take care of themselves due to depletion (a simplification, but not a horrible one).

I don't see phasing out coal-fired electricity plants in favor of nuclear power over 50 years or so as being enormously disruptive to the consumers. Even the late Michael Crichton (a GW critic) agreed with this sort of approach. Dealing with it as a problem, but not a crisis. I can concur with that.

Your point on the vested interests is well-taken. But there are obviously vested interests in keeping the status quo as well, namely King Coal. I think they have perhaps spent a dollar or two in trying to influence this debate as well. The hapless consumer/voter is left wondering who to believe.

As for proof, the issue that I point to is historic CO2 levels. These are recognized to be higher than they've ever been in the last 600,000 years. [I tend to get into p*ssing matches with some at this site who won't don't agree with this point.] I don't know what is considered an adequate reference, but hopefully CDIAC is adequate? Part of the problem with the debate is that both sides tend to reject references of the other. The GW believers think the references by the 'deniers' are too fringe, whereas the 'deniers' think the scientific community as a whole has been co-opted on this topic.

I don't want to indicate that raised CO2 levels alone constitutes proof of global warming. But I do think it constitutes concern. As such, I feel both sides (pro and anti GW) are burdened with proving what is (or what is not) going on.

For example this year the northeastern part of the US and eastern Canada did not receive any summer heat waves until just last week, all because the jet stream stayed south of the Great Lakes most of the summer instead of shifting north of them as it normally would, thus sucking Arctic air masses much farther south than usual on this side of the continent. Whenever hot air masses do arrive, they tend to bring extreme temperatures that set records as what happened in recent weeks in British Columbia all the way up to Alaska.

There are many other examples of extremes happening regularly every season now which were rarely seen 40 years ago and back. The question is what is really going on. My theory is that increased CO2 levels must contribute something to disrupting climate patterns, but CO2 alone is not the only factor, others are a myriad of air-borne pollutants, world deforestation, etc.

Apparent changes in average temperatures over long time frames whether it be warming or cooling is just one measure of changing climate behavior, and not conclusive simply because it is an average measure over many points in time and over many inputs to an extremely complex system.

An example of how other airborne elements can change world climate, there are documented records showing substantial climate changes in the years following major volcanic eruptions. The most famous is the huge one of Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883. During the following year Britain reported spectacular sunsets from the ash ejected into the upper atmosphere as it circled the globe, and the much colder weather in a summer that passed them by.

In my humble opinion, less consistent jet stream patterns are creating much more extreme weather systems because they are not following historical seasonal behaviors. There almost seems to be less mixing and moderation of air masses, and the results are many more weather extremes that last much longer during a given season in any given region. For the last 20 years in eastern Canada, we rarely see decent spring or autumn seasons anymore, they have progressively shrunk in duration.

I therefore tend to agree with Jim that raised CO2 levels constitutes a concern, but it is not our only source of problems.

One thing though is certain. As a logical, oprn-minded, tolerant, friendly and unpredudiced individual I intend to stay far away from Waxman-Markey nuttery and Presiden Obama's Environmental Department - which for some reason he calls his Energy Department

I did not include much discussion of the backup for the points I made in the article as I want to encourage people to look beyond media sensationalism and check out the information that has been published. If you ignore the articles and studies based on analyses that use un-validated computer models, the rest of the work overwhelming contradicts the claims supporting carbon hysteria.

One of the truisms of life is that change is normal. This is particularly true when it comes to climate. Again, the main point of my article is: the claim that global warming (which appears to have stopped) is being driven primarily by man-made CO2 is based almost exclusively on junk science. Wasting more resources on gestures that will have no effect on climate is a luxury we cannot afford when there are so many other urgent needs for those resources.

Sources for Further Information:

NIPCC report: Climate Change Reconsidered - www.nipccreport.org/

The Petition Project - www.petitionproject.org/

Comments by over 700 leading scientists challenging carbon hysteria: Senate Environmental & Public Works Minority Blog, - (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2674e64f-802a-23ad-490b-bd9faf4dcdb7/

Science and Environmental Policy Project – www.sepp.org

Global Warming Facts - www.globalwarmingheartland.org/

List of peer-reviewed articles skeptical of man-caused global warming - http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2008/04/peer-reviewed-articles-skeptical-of-man.html

The Carbon- Sense Coalition - http://www.carbon-sense.com/

The Anti "Man-Made" Global Warming Resource, Stop the Hysteria - http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050

You also said:

"I did not include much discussion of the backup for the points I made in the article as I want to encourage people to look beyond media sensationalism and check out the information that has been published."

This just doesn't make any sense. The point of references is so that the reader doesn't have to re-find all this information. By not including references, you are in fact doing just the opposite!

I was not impressed with the links you just provided. They are typical of AGW denier references, with heavy emphasis on Fred Singer, Craig Idso, and the Oregon petition. All stuff that's been seen before. In fact, I feel a bit bait-and-switched with an article that promises (new?) references, but then delivers the same stuff I've seen again and again.

As far as I could determine, none of these references has disputed the observation that CO2 levels have risen to levels unprecedented in the last 600,000 years. I believe that this is sufficiently high to register a 'concern' such that both sides are burdened as to figure out what's going on.

b) "Their current approach - personal attacks on anyone who challenges GW orthodoxy" -- It's actually the other way around. Go on eg. Physorg.com and argue for GW and you're immeditely personally smeared, no science included, by a determined group of repeat offenders.

c) " I have been searching for years for good science to support this theory. I can't find any." -- it is obvious to everyone from your following three points that your search has NOT included peer-reviewed scientific publications, which it should in fact restrict itself to.

Why bother? I'm not going to read any further. This is just a lot of nonsense.

The pro-AGW information is produced by Phds and published in refereed journals. The following information about CO2 levels was put out by AAAS. They publish Science magazine.

On the other hand, the CO2 level 'deniers' are people like E. G. Beck, a retired high school teacher, and Zbigniew Jaworowski. Both of these people has been thoroughly critiqued by the scientific community at large. (They both claim about the same thing, and make the same mistakes.) That's why I think the pro-AGW information is better. The anti-AGW folks can't really do anything else other than claim a massive scientific conspiracy, encompassing multiple disciplines, all for the purpose of, well, I'm not exactly sure.

Yes, James, we have debated this point. You've presented scant credible evidence to support your point, and deny the evidence in favor of this position by the scientific community. I appreciate that you think it might be nonsense. Well, I think a massive, interdisciplinary scientific conspiracy concerning AGW is nonsense as well.

And I'm sorry Mr. Moran, but I don't thinking citing old references from Idso, Singer and the Oregon petition constitutes "due diligence". Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.

"The article captures the zeitgeist of a growing group of climate scientists who perceive that human activities are already pushing Earth's climate past regional tipping points," said lead author Prof Tim Lenton of UEA's School of Environmental Sciences.[/QUOTE]

http://www.physorg.com/news170328791.html

My point, James, was that "that" list didn't include many, if any, climate scientists, whereas this sort of article is common.

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical...The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system.� - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.�

“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.� - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.� - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

JimB, your assessment that I have provided "scant evidence" is ridiculous. Further, your point to Moran that Idso and Singer citations are "old references" is similarly ridiculous. The report he referenced was issued in May 2009. This indicates a reflexive response on your part that suggests you barely read the article.

You left out key parts of Joanne Simpson's quote. She also said: "What should we as a nation do? Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the IPCC because if we do not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and the climate models are right, the planet as we know it will in this century become unsustainable. But as a scientist I remain skeptical."

The complete quote is here.

The Ivar Giaever quote is similarly muddled. He does claim to be a skeptic, but also admits he is not an expert. He got his Nobel Prize for Electron Tunneling and Superconductivity.

Beware of quote bearing ellipses!

As for Joanne Simpson's views, I quite disagree with her that we should spend trillions of dollars without fully understanding why. I disagree that the "precautionary principle" applies. We differ on that point.

Why was the NIPCC report not published in a refereed journal? Apparently, you haven't looked at it. Why should I treat your question seriously? Firing without aiming, again?

The Ivar Giaever quote is entirely appropriate since he is not speaking to the specific scientific issues global warming. He is more than qualified to express an opinion about the intentions and motivations of those who do.

JeffP: I know that Len does not listen. I am merely pointing this out for the benefit of the rest of the readers.

Anyway, high CO2 levels means one should be concerned. Skepticism is warranted, even healthy. But that doesn't include the summary dismissal of valid data right in front of our eyes.

James, I'm not sure where you got that (original) Joanne Simpson quote from, but think about the character of the person that edited her statement. He or she clearly distorted what Dr. Simpson was saying. Are there so few scientists speaking unfavorably about GW that they feel the need to warp Dr. Simpson's words? It is simply dishonest when ellipses used to remove relevant words.

The people responsible for this seem to be either Marc Morano of the Senate EPW Committee and/or Matthew Dempsey, a staffer for Sen. Inhofe (page 1).

As far as the "summary dismissal of valid data", isn't that exactly what you are doing when you blithely dismiss earlier measurements of CO2? Sure, there are problems with Jaworski and Beck, as there always is with reanalysis, but to utterly dismiss them is hypocritical. And, they never made the claim that you assert about becoming "magically... rock steady". That is a distortion. Finally, once again, you have UTTERLY NO DATA that CO2 levels are at some 600,000 year high. NONE WHATSOEVER. The most you can maybe say that the levels are now above the long run average.

Nobody removed any relevant words from Simpson's quote. She is a skeptic. That was the only point of the quote. You are quite correct on the source. The document clearly references the fact in several places that there is a wide variety of opinion wrt agw. Apparently, you did not read that part, and your point about distortion is itself a distortion. Nevertheless, it looks like you have finally deigned to explore the opposition a little, if only to dig up ammo. Congratulations.

Both Beck and Jaworowski don't seem to understand that the earlier chemical measurements of CO2 were extremely inaccurate. If they weren't, then some variation in the CO2 levels (other than the steady upward rise) would be apparent from the Mauna Loa site. The Mauna Loa IR instrument is sensitive and accurate enough to measure seasonal variation, as shown by the stairstep rise.

The CO2 data in the ice cores tracks the ice age record from fossil depositions, etc. It's definitely a valid signal. One could critique how it tracks with the Mauna Loa levels, but even a high distortion downward (the ice cores are artificially low) would still indicate we are a unprecedented CO2 levels today. Higher than its been in 5-6 ice ages.

As to Beck and Jaworski, I differ. The measurements may well be inaccurate, but the vast majority of thousands of measurements is consistently multiples higher than the ice core data. Also, the raw Mauna Loa measurements are similarly volatile. Are you not aware that each element of the Mauna Loa series is itself average and is taken deliberately so as to minimize variability???

If the chemical measurements were inaccurate and wrong, it doesn't matter if there were thousands of them. Isn't this what the anti-AGW people always say, science isn't about majority opinions?

I don't understand your point about Mauna Loa. The IR technique is the first one that was sensitive enough to detect seasonal variation in CO2 levels. The chemical methods never came close to that.

First, there are no women in the list. How about men under 50 years old? Blacks, Hispancis or Asians? You guys sound like a bunch of old ladies who don't get out much.

Is this representative of the electric power industry? Does that explain why a supposedly non-partisan industry publication would disseminate this stuff?

You guys can't retire soon enough.

JimB: And you know all of the mechanisms that might drive CO2? Don't be ridiculous. As to your 50-100 year peak, those terms lengthen rapidly as the time scale gets larger. 500,000 years ago, the time scale is going to be tens of thousands of years.

You avoided my point about the measurements. Why is that? As for Mauna Loa, you really need to go back and look at how they come up with those measurements. They are AVERAGES. By taking enough measurements and smoothing the curve as is done with Mauna Loa, I suspect that even the chemical methods would exhibit seasonality.

To the Good People: If the Good people at http://www.swapsol.com/ have their way CO2 waste and H2S waste AND the Economy woes ARE history!

SWAPSOL has the solutions!

We will run out of atmosphere before we run out of coal. There's lots of coal left, and it produces more CO2 per BTU produced than either oil or NG.

Susan,

EnergyPulse doesn't edit or review anything as far as I know. So basically anything can get printed as an article, and does.

James,

The CO2 levels track several iterations of ice ages, so if the time scale got larger, the older ice age readings would blur. They don't.

I didn't ignore your point. I didn't understand it. That individual measurements at Mauna Loa are volatile (I think you mean contains random error, but whatever...)? So what? The point is that Keeling developed a measurement regimen that actually works, and the older methods as applied clearly did not. Something that everyone seems to understand but Beck and Jaworowski (and apparently you).

A method that measures 470 ppm one year and 350 ppm 3 years later will scarcely be able to exhibit seasonality.

I think a strange thing about the denier mentality (probably the believer mentality as well) is that they have to deny EVERYTHING. There's plenty of problems with the AGW theory. Modeling (tip 'o the hat to Jeff). Economics of remediation. Viability of alternatives. But past CO2 levels? (JUST the levels; let's leave out the alleged temperature association for the time being.) Hmm.... Not so much. But it HAS to be denied. Why? Because admitting that ANY part of the AGW issue has merit would show WEAKNESS, and WINNING (as opposed to finding the truth) is paramount.

Further, there are orders of magnitude larger numbers of observations in the Mauna Loa data series, so seasonality can be estimated. The reanalysis can't show seasonality because there are insufficient observations (n) per year to quantify that. Nevertheless, that "problem" does NOT refute the conclusions about long term (multi-year) differences in level.

As to your point about Keeling having constructed a better measurement system, why would I deny that? Of course we are doing a much better job of that, mainly because we are taking many more measurements using better math, better methods, controls and equipment. Nevertheless, that does NOT invalidate the measurements taken earlier, nor does it invalidate the reanalysis. We just have to recognize the limitations of that reanalysis.

As for "denying", I am not denying anything about he CO2 data. I am merely respecting its limits. I am also pointing out that the conclusions you have drawn are not warranted by the data, especially wrt Vostok. I, too, am interested in why CO2 levels are rising, but, unlike you, I am prepared to consider the alternate hypothesis that they are natural, not unusual and benign if not beneficial. Why is it that you must belittle and discredit work done by scientists who do not agree with your preconceptions?

Unlike you, I have taken the time to understand the underlying processes that drive the measurements for both Vostok and Mauna Loa. If you actually understood the nature of the Vostok ice core data, you never would have made the comment, "if the time scale got larger, the older ice age readings would blur. They don't." It is quite hilarious!

What is most ridiculous is the notion that we take these reds seriously to begin with.

Finally, it’s the sunspots stupid. What audacious folly to think that man can control the weather when he cannot even control a draught or a rainstorm.

The world's source for global temperature record admits it's lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia - permitting it to snub Freedom of Information requests to see the data.

The CRU has refused to release the raw weather station data and its processing methods for inspection - except to hand-picked academics - for several years. Instead, it releases a processed version, in gridded form. NASA maintains its own (GISSTEMP), but the CRU Global Climate Dataset, is the most cited surface temperature record by the UN IPCC. So any errors in CRU cascade around the world, and become part of "the science".

Professor Phil Jones, the activist-scientist who maintains the data set, has cited various reasons for refusing to release the raw data. Most famously, Jones told an Australian climate scientist in 2004: Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. And you wonder why there are sceptics?

I agree with you! I will agree (to some extent) that chemical analysis with many more samples may have produced better results. (There is some indication that the sampling process itself was flawed before Keeling as well). Lots of samples (with random error) can produce good answers. But the error goes down as the square of the samples taken. I'm sure there were practical problems to good results with the chemical analysis.

But at the end of the day, that doesn't mean the chemical samples before 1957 were any good. Variation of 100 ppm over a few years is not encouraging. Beck and Jaworowski basically took these samples at face value. Lots of other people did the same thing about 50 years ago and decided the measurements were highly problematic. One of them was Keeling, which led to the Mauna Loa instrumentation.

You say we have to accept the limitations of such reanalysis. Agreed. I'd say anything that shows variation of 100 ppm in 2-3 years is EXTREMELY limited.

I doubt the solar panels will last that long, but that's beside the point. What this little anecdote illistrates is the utter insanity of this global warming religiousity. The news blurb quoted the guy as saying his new installation "would help battle climate change". I guess first off that no one pointed out that up here in the Pacific Northwest we get 80% of our electricity from hydropower. Secondly, there is no quantifiable evidence that such activities will have any discernable effect on climate cycles one way or the other. But such is the primary characteristic of willfully blind faith.

I am somewhat hopeful that in the next few election cycles normal people will take back our federal government from the current crop of nationalized socialist nutjobs, and at that time these do-gooders who are ripping off the taxpayers will be presented a bill for their wasteful extravagence. But frankly I think we're past the point of no return regarding this slippery slope of metasticized ecofascism, and returning to prosperous normalcy may be wishful thinking.

Dave Smith Moscow, ID

There's plenty of material supporting the AGW thesis at realclimate.org for those of you still with an open mind and an ability to read and understand a modicum of science.

As for me, I'm unsubscribing to this useless weekly immediately.

"There are none so blind as those who will not see."

Gentlemen,

The Earth is a beautiful planet and all of us we like it to remain so.

In our world many are speaking about Global warming and many scare about it but only few are in clear what it does mean “Killing Watts�. The meaning is related to production of alternative electricity independently from what kind of source it is coming: hydro, coal, nuclear, wind, solar or geo-thermal energy driven power plant.

The effect of induction heating the Earth crust is closely related to alternative electricity from its production by electrical generators via its distribution across the grid to its consumption by users.

The effect of induction heating is well described even in Wikipedia and this effect might lead to collecting of heat inside the Earth crust comparable to quantity of ever-produced electricity. Please consider links below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Structure_of_the_magnetosphere_mod.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth-crust-cutaway-english.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_generator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday%27s_Induction_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_heating

Wow.

The same applies to Jerry. I have read realclimate.org carefully several times. I do not find it convincing. They ignore huge mounds of contrary evidence.

JimB: "I'd say anything that shows variation of 100 ppm in 2-3 years is EXTREMELY limited." Are you being deliberately obtuse? The Mauna Loa data, taken as single data elements is not any different. It's just that they have more data and have smoothed it.

Let me put these as yes/no questions:

1. Do you actually believe that the CO2 values were as high as 470 ppm in the 1940's?

2. Do you believe the atmospheric CO2 magically stabilized (slow upward trend) after 1957?

3. Do you believe Beck's contention that the chemical measurements were accurate to 1-3%?

As long as the power generation industry refuses to acknowledge science they don't want to hear, we will continue to depend on foreign oil and gas, and hideously destructive coal. Changing our electric power sources means creating jobs and improving national security. What would motivate you to stand in the way of a huge surge in importance for your own industry?

Let the kids take over. They'll move us forward.

“Leaders from the Group of 8 leading industrialized nations — United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia — agreed in L’Aquila last July that developed nations should aim to reduce emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 – a formula that essentially requires the developing world to make a 20 percent cut.�

“Chinese lawmakers are considering practical and effective measures to combat climate change. The draft resolution on climate change, submitted to the 10th session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), puts forward five guidelines to practical action to better deal with climate change.�

I would like to understand how it is possible that the entire world is being duped. If it is all being driven by the self interests of a few, then we have more serious problems ahead.

Renewable Energy and environmental Education are essential for the survival of the Preset human race.

“The World is finally becoming globally aware that exponential resource usage in combination with finite reserves is a recipe that ensure our great grand children won’t be born�

Economic development and technological progress can be compatible with reasonable protection of the environment. New Renewable Energy and Environmental management, techniques are in use around the world, helping enterprises to meet their objective of profit, growth and survival, while protecting the environment.

The dimensions of Renewal Energy are increasing each year as governments become aware of the political priority of reasonable ENERGY SECURITY and its links t to economic development and technological progress.

Kisholoy Gupta, Editor & publisher, http://greenhotelnews.info http://greenotelindia.in

I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to know what mix of people this might be. Although it can be frustrating how conservative and seemingly rigid some of these people are, they nonetheless represent the core experience of ACTUALLY providing power to millions of people domestically and billions of people worldwide.

While I admit being perplexed about the intransigence of some of these people about some aspects of AGW, I will also admit being similarly concerned about how alternative energy people simply have no grip of the task of displacing coal. Even a simple run of the numbers indicates that the only possible way this could be achieved is through greater use of nuclear power.

Since nuclear power is rarely mentioned by the alt. energy crowd these days, I will stand with the "conservatives" in expressing concerns that everything will be fine if we simply built more wind turbines and more solar panels. That simply is not the case.

I agree the task of replacing coal over time could be met by greater use of nuclear, but North America is not presently pursuing a great expansion of nuclear with the same fervor and economic support as they are for all the other renewable sources. Indeed it will be a challenge for nuclear to just maintain their current levels of generation as existing plants reach end of life or are threatened by shutdowns.

This begs the question are all our politicians and regulators that ignorant or are they all being duped simultaneously ? I doubt it very much. I suggest they are all depending on another solution - reducing total energy consumption and more importantly consumption growth. The question is how are they going to do this without imposing draconian economic measures.

The pathway of total reduced consumption (TRC) goals is being pursued perhaps most aggressively here in Ontario where our government is attempting to foster a public culture of energy conservation. Through its provincial power authority agency that administers all new generation contracts, it has also mandated fostering enormous TRC targets by 2020. If met they will avoid building gigawatts of new generation, and even allow them to retire our existing coal generation without replacing all of it at once.

It is being implemented by throwing public money into wide-ranging consumer and commercial rebates for purchasing energy efficient products and upgrading building efficiencies. Homeowners and businesses can receive large grants to upgrade buildings or industrial processes. Companies receive rate incentives to enroll in active demand response programs through our local utility companies.

Other measures include setting new commercial standards in energy efficiencies for lighting to residential appliances to heating and air conditioning, and others. They are being set to have increasing efficiency levels over time, and any products that don't eventually meet them over time by defined deadlines will be banned from sale here. Incandescent light bulbs have been the first on their hit lists, and now widescreen televisions are being sucked into it too.

The latter is also placing huge new demands on manufacturing industries to develop new more efficient products. Recognizing this Ontario is also pumping substantially more public money into university and commercial research and development efforts to help them.

The plan is working in Ontario but they have a long way to go yet to meet their TRC targets, and from what I have seen over the past year on this website forum, these ideas are also starting to catch on in the US, Australia, and in Europe.

Susan: "Let the kids take over. They'll move us forward." Been there, done that. We followed that advice once and got Enron for our troubles. Both Fastow and Skilling were well under age fifty when they took over and were still under fifty when they imploded the company and the industry. Fyi, CO2 Cap & Trade was Skilling's idea.

There are several problems with your perspective on the power sector. First of all, the science is not at all conclusive about agw. It is YOU who is ignoring contrary evidence, not the "deniers". I understand the agw case completely. I just don't buy it. You see, we have the maturity to understand that caution is sometimes necessary before spending trillions of dollars. We also understand the enormous cost of what you so blithely advocate.

What national security interests are at stake with respect to POWER? Where did this snippet of nonsense originate? We import practically no fuels that fire generators, less than 1%, other than uranium. Is THAT your national security concern? What little power we do import is from Canada. Do you know something that we do not about Canadian reliability that you would like to share?

Of course the Indians and Chinese make great statements about reducing CO2 emissions - while they open new coal mines and buy coal companies in other countries. The Chinese also said they plan to increase coal production by 30% in the next 6 years. Can all the combined reductions to come out of Kyoto II offset just this? India can’t even keep the lights on or keep their factories running: something wind turbines or solar can’t fix, and nuclear plants have become far too expensive for poor countries.

Kisholoy, Thanks for recognizing the population dilemma.

Susan, Do those young bloods of yours have any ideas about reducing population? It has to happen.

I sympathize with you. I realize the US has made great gains in efficiency levels per capita since 30 or so years ago, but it is widely believed there are much more gains possible yet.

Being an engineer I know what it is like firsthand to have design goals be imposed on developing new products. And sometimes those goals can be wishful thinking if the state-of-the-art today is not good enough to meet those goals.

Too, it is often much easier for non-technical people like politicians etc. to set technical goals that are sometimes unattainable. To reach them successfully often depends intimately on something else given sparse attention for it's worth in industry - innovation and good creative design engineering to meet stringent new goals.

Practical good ideas for new design does not grow on trees, but many average people out there in society don't realize it. They have been spoiled by decades of tremendous progress in technology where many think all that is necessary is to mandate stringent goals and then throw money at it to make it happen.

I do read your posts, and I do endeavor to understand them. And I'm not an idiot (I promise), but I don't understand what you were getting at. This is a difficult medium and sometimes what is clear to the writer is not clear to the reader. (BTW, It bothers me when non-informative replies such as "That's Hilarious" or "Are you being deliberately obtuse?" are written instead of simply stating what the problem or error might be. Similarly, sarcasm is a poor choice for this medium as well, for obvious reasons.)

I tried asking 3 simple yes/no questions, but they were not answered.

But if we can agree that Beck may have misunderstood the error bounds of the old CO2 levels, that's probably good enough for me. That's basically the main critique of his work and Jaworowski's. Beck used these unreliable values (the

1> You have given me no reason to doubt the 1940s numbers. They seem high, but... These observations followed an extraordinary warm period which may well have released huge amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere from the oceans. The subsequent cold period may have absorbed it. We simply do not know enough about the natural variation of CO2 on decadal scales, never mind century or millenial. So, I am not yet prepared to reject it. I am certainly NOT going to concede that the true level was anywhere near the bottom of the range of the reanalysis without a LOT more detailed information that thoroughly discredits the measurements themselves. I read your links and am not convinced.

2> Already answered. The so-called "stabilization" is nothing more than a statistical artifact of the methodology. The Mauna Loa data is smoothed. Do you not understand what that means? The implications?

3> I think he did his math and stats correctly. However, I already stated that I was skeptical of the 1-3% degree of accuracy. Nevertheless, for you to have a point, he would have to be MUCH more inaccurate than that, at least several times 10% with heavy bias.

I am not being sarcastic. I really wondered whether you were being deliberately obtuse. You continue to make absurd claims about the ice core data that it cannot support. You do not "get" why the reanalysis data and the Mauna Loa data are both similar and how they differ.

Let me try ONE more time. If you were to "unsmooth" the Mauna Loa series and extract a random sample of the same frequency (observations per year), you would see a similarly chaotic series, albeit at a lower level. They differ because the Mauna Loa data are measured using better equipment and with orders of magnitude greater frequency and discipline. The fact that the Mauna Loa series is superior does not invalidate the reanalysis at all.

I think we are communicating a bit better here. I am unsure if you agree that Mauna Loa represents the actual CO2 values, or whether you think the CO2 values actually gyrate alot, and the sampling is smoothing them out. I believe the former. I don't think atmospheric CO2 levels (as a whole) vary too quickly, though there can be huge local variation and short-term temporal variation. That's my take concerning #2.

Depending on your opinion of the previous paragraph relates to point #1. If you actually believe the values gyrate wildy (CO2 concentration actually moves alot; not due to sampling problems) then why has this never been seen since 1957? Not even a tiny bit. I think your bias in pre-supposing that the Mauna Loa sampling is covering up CO2 level gyrations (if that's what you are thinking) is much less likely than the value being relatively stable, and the pre-1957 measurements being off. You already have agreed that the technique was less accurate, and they made many fewer measurements.

Given that Beck has allowed for 100 ppm variation in just 2-3 years, and I think this is highly unlikely, then I think he has misstated his accuracy by a large amount. Probably 50% or more. This is why I think these measurements have little value.

You are probably right that the pre-1957 levels are high. But TWICE as high as the true value, with that true value nearly outside the range? No. You have NOT established any likelihood of an error that large. And, just because there is a large measurement error does NOT mean that they "have little value". Besides, I have more confidence in the reanalysis than I do in ice core derived data. Again, we just do not know what the background variability really is. At times, processes are stable for long periods, at other times, they have slow secular changes. And at other times, they experience "regime change" type sudden changes.

Let me give you some analogies, which are of course of limited value. If you lived in Hawaii with no knowledge of other places, you could never consider the possibility of a blizzard or tornadoes.You would never consider that temps could range by fifty degrees F over the course of one day. If you lived in Brazil, you would never consider the possibility of sub-zero cold. Here in Minnesota, we could not conceive of a year without dramatic seasons or a winter without snow.

If someone had told me twelve years ago that an F4 tornado could strip a hundred square miles bare in March with a 56 degree high and an eleven degree hi/lo range, I would have laughed. Yet, it happened in 1998. Believe me, we have studied tornadoes for well over a century here were still shocked. Can a blizzard hit when the high for the day was 60 degrees? Happened and killed 49 people in 1940. How often do "one hundred year" floods happen? Ask someone from Fargo or Grand Forks. Maybe where you live, nature is benign and predictable. Here, we recognize that nature does whatever it likes and doesn't pay any attention to what we think is "possible". Is it possible that CO2 levels were twice as high in the 1940s as they were ten years later? Yeah, sure... it's possible.

How can population be ignored? It’s crazy. We have billions of people with little or no electricity service who have no lighting and cook their food by burning gathered sticks. Solutions, anyone?

We have far more destitute people today than we had a thousand years ago. Progress?

50 years is long enough. Looking at Beck's graph You can see the value bouncing all over the place from 1800 to 1950. And then they suddenly stop? When the measurements improve? You have blinders on if you think that the earlier data should be well-regarded.

And there is no mechanism to spew 100 ppm into the air, and them suck it back out again, in the space of 2-3 years. All our industrial activity raises it just a 1-2 ppm per year. The oceans have huge stores, but they only interact at the surface, so their ability to affect huge changes are also limited. Even large eruptions like Mt. Pinatubo created not a blip in CO2 levels. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that the earlier measurement techniques were highly problematic. When Keeling reviewed the 100s of papers on this topic, written over the past century, he found 3 that he thought were valid.

Note also that even if the 1940s measurements were somewhat accurate, they weren't taken in Hawaii (in fact, the measurements cited by Beck were taken from all different parts of the world. The 1940s readings were taken by Misra in Poona, India) so it is not reasonable to simply attach them to the Mauna Loa readings and assume it represents the same view of world CO2 levels. It is well-known that locality can vary CO2 levels by 100 ppm or more. Yet another mistake by Beck.

I'm sorry, but it simply is not possible, in any practical sense of the word, for levels to have been that high in the 1940's.

As for fifty years being enough history, you would be right IF AND ONLY IF CO2 levels were static. We know they are not. As for heat island and CO2 measurement, your point is well taken. However, a large proportion of the observations were not done in urban areas.

One more time. Beck's data is not smoothed, unlike Mauna Loa. One more time, the "sudden" change to consistency is nothing more than a statistical artifact. Why am I repeating myself? I ask in all sincerity, are you being deliberately obtuse?

Your point about the 1940s raises another. If different locations "vary CO2 levels by 100 ppm or more", and "even if the 1940s measurements were somewhat accurate", both are your words, how is it possible that the average measurement for the 1940s was more than 150 points higher than the late 1950s? Is Mauna Loa somehow bereft of CO2?

This CO2 discussion has devolved like a lot of things into people talking past each other and missing the salient points. The Mona Loa site was specifically chosen because A) it had substantial elevation and B) it was supposed to be free of "CO2 island" effects. What they were looking for was a world AVERAGE CO2 level and they figured that was as good a place as any to get it. Some people here believe that CO2 automagically homogenizes in the atmosphere to perfect average levels. I can tell you it does NOT and remedial science knowledge is more than enough to understand this point. Therefore Jim saying we have the highest CO2 levels in 600K years needs the clarification (which he's never given) that A) he's talking AVERAGE CO2 and B) the methodology used to determine levels for the last 600K years are valid. Just like Mona Loa the thought is that antarctic ice is pristine and therefore holds perfectly average levels that managed to find their way there, literally by osmosis.

Using spectrometry measures may or may not be more accurate than chemical measurements, all depends on the initial spectrometer control batch. In the good old days, before the "young bloods" Susan is so fond of came on the scene ANY scientist worth his pasty white salt (yes they were often men, yes they were often white, get over it) would have been able to contrive the measurement experiments and carry them out. Unfortunately today, we have a massive crop of newly minted PhD's who don't have the first idea HOW to do an experiment, nor how to carry it out. They use expensive instruments, which they don't know the underlying principals of, and implicitly trust whatever results they produce. We have an entire society of such folk. Recently in my state literally thousands of drunk driving convictions were overturned because the breathalyzers had NEVER been properly setup. They'll give you an answer "accurate" to the nth degree, but unfortunately without understanding HOW they operate and WHY they give the results they do, well those results turned out to be meaningless.

Yes Mauna Loa was picked to sample CO2 because points west of it (the Pacific Ocean) are free of urban centers so the samples will better reflect true atmospheric values. Most of the early measurements were taken on land in urban centers like London or Paris or Berlin.

Yes, I was referring to average levels, and yes, there is an issue to how appropriately to knit ice core levels with the Mauna Loa data. This was done, I believe, with the Law Dome data, which had ice cores as late as the 1950s.

There is also an error in the ESRL posting. Concentrations are higher in the northern hemisphere than in the southern only in part because of combustion. They are also higher because of differences in land mass versus ocean. Oceans are enormous CO2 sinks relative to land masses.